


To Teeth and Claws and Slamming Doors

by gremlins-came-and-got-me (Scared_Beings_in_the_Dark)



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Cutting, Gen, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Italics Instead, No Quotation Marks, Past Underage Sex, Post Hale Fire, Pre-Season 1, Self-Harm, Suicidal Ideation, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Victim Blaming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-27
Updated: 2017-02-27
Packaged: 2018-09-27 03:45:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9954980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scared_Beings_in_the_Dark/pseuds/gremlins-came-and-got-me
Summary: Two years after the fire that killed their family, Laura and Derek are still trying to figure out how to survive.*Read tags*





	

**Author's Note:**

> For Beth, who was kind and understanding when her first choice story fell through.
> 
> Title taken from James Bay's Let It Go.

\--

It starts with a mirror.

Laura finds the shards in the trash bin under a pile of bloodstained rags she swears is her favorite dishcloth.

She confronts Derek, but her brother won’t answer her increasingly frustrated queries. She leaves him alone when they both shift, animalistic faces and her claws on his throat.

Over the next three weeks, Laura keeps finding broken glass—from the replaced mirror, from glasses in the cupboard. Usually, it’s already in the trash bin in the bathroom. But, sometimes she’s fast enough to catch Derek putting it there.

Alpha Ronson suggests therapy and recommends someone.

Derek fights the whole time Laura tries convincing him to go. She wins, she thinks, because she stops finding glass.

When he comes back from his first session, he reeks of pain, fury, and guilt so strong it burns Laura’s nose. He hasn’t smelled this wrong since right after the fire.

No matter how many times he goes to see the therapist, a rotund woman with beads woven into braids and long fingernails she paints in a rainbow of colors, he never smells better. Sometimes, if Laura scents him, she catches traces of bitter salt on his cheeks and clinging to his lashes.

He won’t talk to her about it no matter how hard she badgers him. The morning after her latest interrogation, his room is coated in his blood. She’s late to work because she spends two hours scrubbing it with the scent-canceling pads Alpha Ronson gives them to use in their windows.

She goes to the therapist seeking answers. Instead, she feels brushed off, belittled, and she wonders if Derek ever feels this way with her. Something Jerri says gives Laura an idea, though, and she decides it’s something she can do about Derek’s activity.

He stares at her as she’s replacing all the mirrors in their apartment with silver-paint-backed Plexiglass sheet. Wordlessly (a common theme with him, she’s noted), he leaves her to it.

A few days later, she throws out every single drinking glass made from actual glass and hands Derek a plastic cup of juice when he asks (voice cracking with disuse) what the hell she thinks she’s doing.

They stare each other down until Derek looks away. He gives back the untouched juice and goes to his room, where he spends most of his time he’s not at therapy (Laura hasn’t been able to make him go back to school despite Alpha Ronson’s best arguments).

She strains her ears, but all she hears is the rustling of him digging under his bed.

He returns suddenly, holding an old shoebox. She recalls he used to keep baseball cards in it. How it survived the fire, she doesn’t know.

 _Come here,_ Derek says. _I want to show you something._

He sits on the couch and she sits next to him. He’s too tense for her to touch, so she studies his profile instead. He doesn’t look like her sixteen-year-old brother. Instead, he looks old—used and worn out and ready to break. His eyes are haunted. She imagines hers are too.

His hands are shaking too hard to pull off the lid of the box, so she reaches out and steadies it, helps him.

There aren’t any baseball cards in the box.

Instead, it’s full of stacks of Polaroid pictures, all of Derek, bleeding, cutting, healing wounds. He sorts through them quickly with a kind of _shushing_ noise.

Laura feels ill. Yes, she knew about the injuries, but she hadn’t thought it was _this_ bad.

He hands her one from the middle, refusing to make eye contact when he says, _Jerri wanted me to tell you._

Laura stares at the photo. It’s Derek’s stomach, bloodied. But, in the smears of red, she sees letters, words.

_Beautiful. Monster. Slut. Killer._

_Sweetie_ carved so deep in his flesh her fingers itch to check that it’s healed completely.

_You did this to yourself?_

No answer.

_Why?_

No. Answer.

_Thank you for telling me._

They don’t talk more that night, and Derek leaves her the pictures to study when he goes back to his room.

Laura goes to Jerri and instead of demanding answers like last time, she sits on the tiny couch crammed in the corner, curled around a pillow that smells like stress, anger, pain—like her brother—and for the first time since the night of the fire, she cries.

She asks how to help her brother, she tells about removing the breakable glass from the apartment. She wonders about the words, unsurprised when Jerri’s scent goes sharp and spicy—anger. Laura goes home feeling empty, hallowed out and lacking but hopeful.

Slowly, slowly, she and Derek learn each other again.

Neither of them likes fire, but Derek trusts her with his _triskelion_ —they don’t talk about it afterward, but Laura can’t get his screams out of her head for weeks. Laura lets Derek have an actual mirror and tries to teach him how to shave the sparse hairs on his chin. And they use Derek’s camera to take less painful pictures, like the first time she catches him smiling at a sunset, and that time Laura finally caught a snowflake on her tongue after almost an hour of trying.

It feels good. It feels like healing.

And then the empty apartment across the hall is rented out to a young couple with a tiny babe. Sarah is brunette, soft, and sweet-smelling, stomach already big with another child. She stays home with their son while Kelly goes off to work.

Laura doesn’t meet Kelly for a month, their schedules nearly opposite, but she knows her by her scent—fire and ash (from her job) and anger.

Around the time Sarah and Kelly move in, Derek stops talking. He stops getting better, and panicking, thinking he’s going to start cutting again, Laura asks Sarah to keep an eye on him, to check periodically and update her too.

When Laura and Kelly do finally meet, it’s a cluster-fuck. Kelly is in Derek’s face, cornering him in his own bedroom, screaming in his face, and he’s on the verge of shifting, eyes swinging between vibrant blue and luminous green.

Sarah called Laura home from work, worried because Kelly is jealous of something and wants a piece of her brother.

One step into the room and the hair on the back of Laura’s neck raises. Derek is terrified, panting and whining, and she sees the tips of his canines growing and shrinking as he fights for control.

 _Stop!_ Laura yells. Kelly freezes, turning to her, and Derek takes the opportunity to scuttle around her to hide behind Laura. _Explain._

Apparently, Kelly thinks Sarah and Derek are having sex. For a brief, shameful moment, Laura thinks of the words— _slut_ —that Derek carved into himself and wonders if he is…promiscuous.

Derek stutters when she looks at him, and the wave of terror, grief, and acceptance breaks her heart.

 _I didn’t_ , he says. _I can’t._

_I believe you._

Laura whips around to stare at Kelly. She looks (and smells) ashamed. At her back, Laura feels Derek trembling.

 _I’m sorry_ , Kelly says.

Laura flips out, yelling and shoving her out of their apartment. Sarah follows slower, apologizes too, but Laura is too furious with them, with herself. With Derek.

 _We’re moving,_ she declares, stomping past Derek to rattle the plastic cups in the cupboard, searching for the one glass-glass she bought after so many months of no relapses, trusting Derek with it, like the new mirrors. She likes to use it to drink wine.

They’ll have to pack everything and find a new place tonight. Alpha Ronson might have another complex for them to try.

Laura growls in frustration, forgoing the glass to start drinking straight from the bottle.

_Her name was Kate._

She freezes, looks at her brother sitting on the couch inspecting his nails. Underneath the absolute terror and anger she smells…hope?

Derek refuses to look at her when he repeats what he said. He adds, _She was older than me._

That much, Laura thinks, she could have guessed.

Derek gestures at his body. _Those words were hers—Kate’s._

 _Killer_ , Laura thinks. Derek’s eyes burn bright blue when he shifts. They have since he was fourteen. _Killer._

 _The fire?_ she asks. Derek doesn’t answer, but his guilt permeates the air.

For a long moment, Laura stares at his bowed head, his slumped shoulders. She thinks, in this moment, that she hates him.

He’s the reason their family is dead, burned beyond recognition—of that she’s certain. He did something with Kate or to Kate and his atonement was the death of all the people who loved him.

Claws, fangs. How easy it would be to throw him down and rip his throat out. He deserving he would be.

Derek sniffles quietly, the burst of salt from his tears settling heavy on her tongue. That little broken sound snaps Laura’s bloodlust, but she’s nowhere near ready to forgive him.

She doesn’t know if she ever can.

Derek finally looks up, and Laura doesn’t see him as he’s been for the past two years, shuffling around, barely existing with her. No, right now, all she sees is the six-year-old kid who was afraid of the bathtub drain because their uncle Peter convinced him it could suck him in. She sees the eight year old who couldn’t stand her fighting with Peter despite the fact that they needed to train and wouldn’t have truly hurt each other. She sees the fourteen year old with gold eyes who asked her what it meant when you were in love.

 _Jerri says Kate is a predator,_ Derek says, quiet. He never talks about his therapy, so Laura listens with all her ears—supernatural and human—as he explains how Kate manipulated him. About why she targeted him.

He talks about Paige, about basketball, about sex. He talks about the fire, and Laura listens.

She doesn’t feel anything, numb.

When he finally runs out of words, Derek falls silent, his head in his hands.

Laura tries to reach out to him only to find her feet stick to the floor. She sniffs him and the scents are overwhelming: guilt, fear, sadness, guilt, anger, rage, guilt. Guilt. Guilt.

Laura screams, tearing at her hair.

 _Kate,_ she says to Derek’s startled face. _You said Kate—Kate who? Tell me, Derek!_

He doesn’t.

She smashes her wine bottle on the table in front of him, and then storms from the apartment. Maliciously, she hopes he relapses enough to slit his wrists and rid her of his burden.

She walks for hours, winding her way through and around their neighborhood, trying to calm herself.

It’s not working, so she swings by Alpha Ronson’s den to ask about forgiveness.

 _Inside you,_ is all she says before she shuts the door in Laura’s face.

Inside of Laura is dead, burned with her family. There is no room for forgiveness.

Tired, sad, alive, Laura returns to the apartment.

She finds Sarah sitting outside their door.

 _We’ll move,_ she says, _so you don’t have to. It’s not fair to take Derek’s stability from him._

 _Derek,_ Laura sneers, _doesn’t deserve stability._

Sarah stares at her, judging her. Laura doesn’t care. _He’s a victim,_ Sarah says icily, and her scent sours with distaste and disgust—for Laura, she realizes. _Don’t ever forget that again._ Sarah says, _Your brother is a victim._

She hauls herself to her feet, refusing Laura’s help. Before she goes to her own door, she pauses. _Maybe tell him he’s brave instead of demanding answers always._ She hands Laura a picture and disappears into her apartment.

The photo in Laura’s hand is of Derek picking up the smashed wine bottle.

Dread settles quickly, guilt following. What if he did relapse because of her carelessness? She shoves into the apartment, fully prepared to smell his blood, death, and decay.

Instead, what she finds is the couch and coffee table cleaned off. The only thing there is Derek’s camera.

The stench of fear, guilt, and resignation is concentrated where she can still faintly scent the wine. What she doesn’t smell is blood. She checks all the trash bins and finds the glass dumped into the bin beneath the kitchen sink. She stares at the green glass gleaming on top of all the other random debris.

It’s not hidden and there are no bloody rags with it. Of course, that doesn’t mean Derek didn’t keep a piece of it to use later, but just a quick scan shows that the bottle is probably all there.

Laura focuses her hearing. Derek is in his room pretending to be asleep. She wants to go to him, but a (small yet growing larger) part of her says she doesn’t deserve to bother him again tonight.

Derek takes the choice from her by opening his door. He stares at her wordlessly, gazing impassively. He’s rumpled, hair sticking up one side of his head, dressed in frayed pajama pants and a ratty t-shirt passed down from Alpha Ronson’s eldest son. So, maybe he really was asleep before she slammed into the apartment.

 _I._ Her throat dries out. _Victim,_ her mind whispers. Also, _slut, killer, sweetie._

 _Stop,_ he says. _Stop feeling guilty. So you yelled at me? So what? I deserve it. I let her—Kate—do things to me._ I let her in. _And she killed our family because of me._

_Is that why you cut yourself? To atone for still being here when they aren’t?_

He shrugs. _That’s what Jerri said too. And maybe it was at first, but then it became more about what I could control. I couldn’t control my thoughts or my memories, or your anger at me._ He eyes her when her guilt spikes. _I could control how I hurt on the outside,_ he continues, softly. _I could take Kate’s words and make them mine. Jerri suggested that I keep physical evidence of what I’d done—the words I’d used, how frequently I’d do it. Then, she told me to tell you._

_And I reacted badly—like it’s your fault._

_It_ is _my fault. I told you._ I _let Kate in._

 _And how often did Kate approach you?_ Laura lowers her voice, steps forward to brush her hand down Derek’s arm. He shivers under her touch. _How many times did she have sex with you, build you up, and then break you down?_

Derek won’t meet her eyes. His scent flares with guilt and embarrassment.

_Too many, Derek. How ever many times she hurt you was that many times too many._

She hugs him tightly. For the first time, it doesn’t feel like an alpha and her beta embracing. Instead, it feels like coming home.

 _We’ll both go to therapy and work on it,_ Laura promises him.

Derek doesn’t say anything right then, but he holds onto her just as tight as she holds onto him.

Maybe, she thinks, when he’s finally drifted off leaning against her, head tucked under her chin arms still wound around her shoulders, maybe it’ll all be okay.

-fin-

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know if anything else needs to be tagged.
> 
> Thank you for reading.


End file.
